Innocent Blood

Innocent Blood is a sorcery card originally printed in the 2001 Odyssey expansion for Magic: The Gathering, later reprinted in the 2017 Explorers of Ixalan standalone board game set. The card represents a core effect in the game’s black color identity, forcing each player to sacrifice a creature. This mechanic reflects the flavor of dark sacrifice often associated with black-aligned magic, trading a portion of one's own board presence to force an opponent to do the same.

The artwork for the original Odyssey version was created by illustrator Greg Staples. His dark, evocative style captures the grim nature of the spell, depicting a sacrificial ritual that emphasizes the card's theme of life-costing removal. While the card is a functional reprint in Explorers of Ixalan, its inclusion in that set provided a thematic link to the set's tribal focus, as the sacrifice effect often serves as a tactical response to an opponent’s creature-heavy strategy.